The Creationist Basis for Modern Science

This article describes some of the founding scientists of the past and shows that they based their beliefs on biblical creation.

The whole basis for modern science depends on the assumption that the universe was made by a rational creator. Dr Stanley Jaki has documented how the scientific method was still-born in all cultures apart from the Judeo-Christian culture in Europe (Science and Creation (Edinburgh and London: Scottish Academic Press, 1974)). An orderly universe makes perfect sense if it was made by an orderly Creator. But if there is no creator, or if Zeus and his gang were in charge, why should there be any order at all? Loren Eiseley stated (Loren Eiseley: Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men who Discovered It, Doubleday, Anchor, New York (1961):

“The philosophy of experimental science…began its discoveries and made use of its methods in the faith, not the knowledge, that it was dealing with a rational universe controlled by a creator who did not act upon whim nor interfere with the forces He had set in operation… It is surely one of the curious paradoxes of history that science, which professionally has little to do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be rationally interpreted, and that science today is sustained by that assumption.”

Most branches of modern science were founded by believers in creation. The list of creationist scientists is impressive. A sample:

Even today, many scientists reject particles-to-people evolution (i.e. everything made itself). The Answers in Genesis staff scientists have published many scientific papers in their own fields. Dr Russell Humphreys, a nuclear physicist working with Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has over 20 articles in physics journals, while Dr John Baumgardner’s catastrophic plate tectonics theory was published in Nature. Dr Edward Boudreaux of the University of New Orleans has published 26 articles and four books in physical chemistry. Dr Maciej Giertych, head of the Department of Genetics at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, has published 90 papers in scientific journals. So an oft-repeated charge that no real scientist rejects evolution is completely without foundation. Find information about many highly qualified creation scientists.

C.S. Lewis also pointed out that even our ability to reason would be called into question if atheistic evolution were true (God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1970) pp. 52-53):

“If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our thought processes are mere accidents-the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts-i.e. of Materialism and Astronomy-are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give a correct account of all the other accidents.”

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Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively. We focus on providing answers to questions about the Bible—particularly the book of Genesis—regarding key issues such as creation, evolution, science, and the age of the earth.